


Between the Lights

by MeaRiver



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24215872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeaRiver/pseuds/MeaRiver
Summary: A few missing scenes from the movie. Canon compliant with RTA, but you don't need to watch it to follow the fic.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Between the Lights

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically a collection of my personal headcanons. I have plans for more fic, and unless it's an AU, you can assume everything here is canon to any future fics I write.

The girl and her useless mother had _killed_ her flower. Gothel hated them both. And the damned king, and all his useless guards, too.

She had spent so _many_ years searching for the Sundrop flower, and even more keeping it secret, keeping it safe. Her flower had _thanked_ her, rewarded her with beauty and youth as a token of gratitude and love, and simple bad luck had caused it to be discovered, uprooted, and devoured.

And now she was stuck with this… _thing_.

It hadn’t stopped screaming the first few months. Gothel had had _quite_ enough of crying infants in her long life, and was not pleased to have to deal with it again. Especially when the damned noise threatened to alert the Coronan guards. She more than once considered cutting off the thing’s head and keeping it in a box--as long as the hair wasn’t cut, the magic should still work, right?--but she couldn’t risk it.

Gothel found locking it up in one of the side rooms until it screamed itself hoarse was sufficient to keep the noise from reaching outside. And sometimes, when she sang mournfully to her dead flower, it would shut up. Small mercies.

And as though she didn’t have _enough_ problems to deal with, it started walking and talking, too! At least the thing could start being useful soon, but for now she had to _manage_ it. It was clearly going to keep growing--the stolen magic in its veins wouldn’t stop that until it was _least_ twenty or thirty--and Gothel had to make sure it didn’t use those stupid legs to carry away the corpse of her flower. But it would be no trouble keeping such a little pest in its place.

Still, it _enraged_ her. How dare those trumped up landlords attack her flower? _Her_ flower? How dare they meddle with gifts meant for her and her alone? She would show them--one day, after much planning, after she toyed with them until they hurt as much as they hurt her, she would--

“Mommy?”

Gothel started. She hadn’t heard the thing wake up and come down the stairs, but there it was, blinking the sleep out of its eyes, hair dragging on the floor behind her. Gothel smiled kindly from her place by the fire, hiding indignation that this thing had risked tripping down the stairs and killing itself--and her magic--forever. And for what? Another foolish nightmare, no doubt.

“What is it, little one?”

The girl looked up at her with big green eyes. Gothel bit down on her impatience and forced herself to keep smiling, willing it to hurry _up_.

“Mommy, are you sad?”

“No, Mommy's not sad.” _I’m just losing my patience with you, you little murderer._ “Mommy was just thinking.” _That you should have died in the womb._

It kept looking at her with a little frown, lost in whatever passed for thoughts in its stupid little head. Then, suddenly, it rushed forward and threw its arms around her waist. Gothel stiffened.

“I love you, mommy,” it said, voice muffled, buried against her dress. “Thank you for keeping me safe.”

Gothel looked down, and saw only a golden head of hair glowing in the firelight. It reminded her of the glow of her flower.

Her _flower._

Tears welled up in Gothel’s eyes. With a sob, she gathered up that golden hair and held it close. The girl got caught up in her desperate hug, but Gothel paid her no heed, because her _flower_ was still _alive!_

She rocked herself (and the girl) back and forth as she wept, unable to speak. _I’m so sorry, my flower. I thought you were_ dead! _I didn’t know you were_ in _there!_

“Mommy?” the thing, the little girl, asked. She sounded a bit teary.

Gothel held the girl away from herself, just a bit, to get a good look at her. She searched those big green eyes for another sign of her flower. They looked at her with all the love and adoration of a child for its mother.

 _There_ was her flower.

“Oh, my flower,” she said, truly happy for the first time in years. “Mommy is just so happy to _see_ you!”

Gothel pulled the girl in again, and stroked her hair. Her flower was alive! Trapped inside this new body, but _alive!_ All thoughts of vengeance fled from her mind--they would have to wait. Freeing her flower was more important. She would be her mother, just like before, singing her praises to help her bloom to her full potential.

And Gothel would **crush** the parasite trying to hold her flower back.

**Author's Note:**

> And so Corona is saved by the warped love and self-delusion of a narcissist! Yay?
> 
> Seriously, Gothel is a villain I love to hate, because she’s so real. Like, the only unrealistic thing she does, compared to real-life abusive parents, is keep Rapunzel 100% isolated, and that's just because that's hard to pull off. Not even stabbing the boyfriend is that unrealistic--I’ve heard plenty of stories of shitty parents trying to kill their victim’s significant others, though it’s usually via “forgetting” food allergies. There was one attempted stabbing among the stories I’ve heard. On a tragically hilarious sidenote, I’ve also heard of shitty parents seeing this movie and _agreeing_ with Mother Knows Best, Gothel’s _villain song_.
> 
> So thanks, Disney, for providing a realistic look at what shitty parents look like, so people caught in these situations can see it for what it truly is. And thanks for certain plot points in the series showing that a biological mother can be this bad, too.
> 
> Anyway, I’ve got a couple other little headcanons to do with Gothel that didn’t fit here and won’t be coming up in future chapters:
> 
> 1\. Gothel kept Rapunzel’s name the same because she was named after the flower. In Gothel’s mind, it was the one thing her parents did right. And it’s not like she cared enough to change it.
> 
> 2\. Gothel kept her birthday the same because again, why bother changing it? The lantern festival started as a small, somber ceremony that grew over time. Gothel didn’t notice the first few years when it was visible from the tower, and Rapunzel saw them and kept it a secret. By the time Gothel discovered it, it was too late to change Rapunzel’s birthday and convince her that the lanterns had nothing to do with her. That was when Gothel started guilt tripping Rapunzel about keeping promises, and made her promise not to keep secrets from her dear, sweet mommy.
> 
> 3\. Just to spell it out, in my headcanon, Gothel views Rapunzel and the flower as two separate entities within the same body, warring for control. When Rapunzel is obedient, Gothel sees that as the flower shining through. When Rapunzel is in any small way rebellious, Gothel sees it as “that damned parasite” exerting its influence. If she can crush the spirit of the rebellious “parasite,” her obedient flower can take over, and she'll never have to worry about Rapunzel running away. Try watching the movie again with this in mind, it’s creepy how well it fits.


End file.
